Los Angeles Review of Books: Hilton Als on His Playwrighting Debut: Robert Wilson, Race, and the Avant Garde

Critic, photographer and artist, Hilton Als joins Kate and Medaya to discuss his debut play, Lives of the Performers, which tells the story of actress Sheryl Sutton, one of the lead actors in Robert Wilson’s ground-shattering troupe in the 1970s. Als, the former theater critic at the New Yorker, also discusses his fascination with twins, writing a play, and the role race has played in the history of the avant-garde.

The show also includes a spirited debate among the hosts about this year’s soporific Golden Globes: are woke actors enough to keep you awake?

Also, legendary film critic J Hoberman returns to explain why his favorite film of 2019, Mary Harron’s Charlie Says, was a superior take on the Manson Family saga than Quintin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Listen to the full interview here.

In memoriam Jessye Norman

Robert Wilson wrote this letter to Jessye Norman on September 29, 2019, after his opening of Turandot at the Canadian Opera Co. in Toronto.

Robert Wilson and Jessye Norman

OTELLO – The Drama about Jealousy directed by Robert Wilson in Baden-Baden at the Osterfestspiele. Opening on April 13

Verdi’s Otello is both drama and ritual at once. Magician of the theater Robert Wilson stages the work as the latter, while Zubin Mehta conducts it as the former – in collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker, who continue their explorations of opera with the Indian master conductor.

More information: https://www.festspielhaus.de/en/events/verdi-otello

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I LA GALIGO to be revived in Bali on October 9

More than 14 years after its celebrated world première in Singapore, which was followed by an international tour, I La Galigo can now be seen again on the Peninsula Island of Nusa Dua, Bali. The work is based on Sureq Galigo, an epic poem from South Sulawesi about the creation of man, and features a cast of more than 50 performers and live musicians. Music by Rahayu Supanggah.

JOE: A Celebration of Joseph V. Melillo at BAM

Last night, we celebrated Joe Melillo and his achievements during his 35 years as BAM’s Executive Producer. I was proud to direct a short performance entitled For Joe A Man Who, with an amazing ensemble of Lucinda Childs, Isabelle Huppert, Nonhlanhla Kheswa, Isabella Rossellini, Jeremy Irons, Chukwudi Iwuji, Carl Hancock Rux and John Turturro. Among the many other artists that composed, wrote and performed for this memorable night at the Harvey Theater were Laurie Anderson, David Lang, Mitchell Rose, Daniel Bernard Roumain and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

“THIS IS HIS THIS IS IS HIS THAT IS IS IS HIS and OURS
THIS IS HIS HIS IS THIS that IS HIS IS OURS
THIS that AND that is that is HIS THAT WILL always BE
THIS ours that will always BE OURS for NOW + FOREVER
THIS IS HIS IS MINE and YOURS OURS FOREVER
THIS IS and THAT is THAT is HIS IS OURS
THIS IS THIS THAT IS IS his IS ALL of US.”

— with love always, BOB

Joe Melillo

Isabella Rossellini, Isabelle Huppert, Jeremy Irons, Carl Hancock Rux

Carl Hancock Rux, Lucinda Childs, John Turturro

Isabella Rossellini

Ensemble

Robert Wilson

Photographs © Richard Termine

"The Hat Makes The Man" Opens Tonight at the Max Ernst Museum Brühl

“Some nearly fifty years after he first created his surrealist sensation ‘Deafman Glance,’ Robert Wilson tips his hat to his mentor Max Ernst. Wilson’s staged theatrical performances, in the words of surrealist writer Louis Aragon, are ‘what we others, who fathered surrealism, what we dreamed it might become after us, beyond us.’ No mere retrospective or remembrance, this exhibition is more of a collaboration between two of the world’s quintessential dreamers.

The theme of Wilson’s exhibition reflects his wish to infuse the museum with the spirit of Ernst and that of the Watermill Center, the artists’ community where Wilson shares his personal collection of art and artifacts with the public, and nurtures the creativity of young and emerging artists. The exhibition clearly conveys Wilsons creative processes, featuring a selection of objects that serve as the raw material from which the artist draws his inspiration in many of the same ways Max Ernst drew inspiration from his own diverse collection.

Reminiscent of great cabinets of curiosities—especially the collected artifacts of André Breton and Max Ernst—this exhibition tells us less about the objects themselves than about the great artists whose dreams were initiated by them.”

— Noah Khoshbin, Curator

Exhibition Concept and Design: Robert Wilson - Design Collaboration: Marie de Testa - Curator: Noah Khoshbin - Lighting Design: Scott Bolman - Sound Design: Dario Felli - Registrar and Collection Consultant: Christian Clement - Max Ernst Museum Brühl: Achim Sommer, Friederike Voßkamp, Jürgen Pech

Robert Wilson's new Verdi and Puccini operas

Good news to all Friends of Italian Opera: over the next 12 months, you will be able to see three of Verdi's masterpieces and one by Puccini, directed by Robert Wilson, in different European locations. 

The Troubadour will première at the Verdi Festival in Parma on September 29 in the rarely performed French version (Le Trouvère), which the composer adapted in the style of a "Grand Opéra" for Parisian audiences in 1855. The performances will be conducted by Roberto Abbado. Shortly after that, on October 12, 14 and 16, Bob Wilson's beloved production of La Traviata, under the baton of Teodor Currentzis and with the MusicAeterna orchestra from Perm, will perform at the Grand Théâtre de la Ville in Luxembourg. Opening on November 30, and with performances throughout December, will be a new production of Puccini's Turandot at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Finally, Wilson will direct a new Otello for the Baden-Baden Festival next April, in which the Berlin Philharmonic will play under the baton of Daniele Gatti.